Subhas Chandra Bose

Subhas Chandra Bose (23 January 1897-18 August 1945) was the leader of the Azad Hind puppet government of Japan during World War II. He also helped in the creation of the Indische Legion, which collaborated with the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany during the war against the United Kingdom, and the pro-Japan Indian National Army. Bose died in a plane crash while trying to flee to the Soviet Union.

Biography
Subhas Chandra Bose was born on 23 January 1897 in Cuttack, Bengal Presidency, British Raj, United Kingdom. Bose was active in his beliefs of Indian nationalism in opposition to the British rule over India, and he joined the Indian National Congress in 1937. He advocated a campaign of mass civil disobedience at the start of World War II to push for Indian independence, and in April 1941 he arrived in Nazi Germany to acquire Adolf Hitler's support for Indian independence from his enemies, the British. In November 1941, he set up a Free India Center in Berlin, and the 3,000-strong Indische Legion of the Waffen-SS was formed out of Indian volunteers that traveled from India to serve with the Nazis against Britain. In 1942, he returned to India to assist in the formation of the Indian National Army, and he was named the head of the Azad Hind puppet government set up in the Japanese-controlled areas of India. Bose was regarded as militarily-unskilled by the Japanese, and when the Indian National Army surrendered at Singapore at the end of the war in 1945, Bose decided to flee to Manchuria in the Soviet Union rather than surrender, knowing that the USSR was becoming anti-British. However, he died in a plane crash over Taipei in Japanese Taiwan on 18 August 1945 before he could reach Russia.